William Murdoch

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Murdoch. Reproduction of an oil painting by the Scottish painter John Graham Gilbert .

William Murdoch, occasionally Murdock (born  August 21, 1754 in Bello Mill Cottage, Lugar, in the county of Ayrshire , Scotland , †  November 15, 1839 in Handsworth near Birmingham ), was a Scottish engineer and inventor in the early industrial phase of Great Britain. As a student of James Watts , he devised a number of important applications of the steam engine, such as the locomobile (1784) and a further development of the paddle steamer . He gained particular fame through the invention of gas lighting using town gas (1792).

life and work

Bello Mill Cottage
Plaque on Bello Mill Cottage

Murdoch was born the third of seven children to the mill farmer and former infantryman John Murdoch in the Cumnoch parish. He first attended the village school and at the age of ten switched to the Auchinleck School , where his teacher, the author of an arithmetic textbook that was widespread at the time, discovered and promoted his special mathematical talent.

At the same time, his father supported this talent with his knowledge of mechanical relationships and the processing of wood and metal. For example, around 1763 he and his father built a “wooden horse” (a three-wheeled bicycle with pedals that were moved with the hands), which caused quite a stir at the time. He also appeared to have helped his father a lot on the bridge construction sites John Murdoch ran in the county. The occasional claim that young William was in charge of one of these bridges himself and that he was responsible for the construction, is unfounded and should be regarded as a legend.

Early years as an engineer

At the age of 23, Murdoch wandered about 500 kilometers from his hometown to Birmingham , the center of the industrial revolution that was beginning at that time, to find a job with the famous James Watt . He had founded Boulton & Watt just two years earlier to meet the great demand for steam engines and needed capable employees. Watt's partner Boulton was so impressed with the young Murdoch's work that he gave him a job as a machine component designer. Just a year later, Murdoch was considered irreplaceable for Boulton and Watt. For example, on his first job, where he was left on his own, he improved the arrangement of gears in a lead mine when installing a standard steam engine from the company so that a steam outlet valve was controlled by the piston.

Model of Murdoch's steam car in the think tank, Birmingham Science Museum

From 1779 Murdoch was the chief engineer who was responsible for the lowering of the groundwater level of a tin mine in Cornwall on behalf of Boulton & Watt. This was a common practice at the time; Steam engines were not simply sold, but also operated and maintained by the manufacturing company. Even the payment for the machines was regulated differently: the manufacturer received a fee based on the efficiency with which the machines worked. Murdoch's ideas and new designs increased the efficiency with which the machines worked so much that the tin mine became a gold mine for Boulton & Watt. Murdoch worked as an engineer in the Cornwall mines until 1797, not only constantly improving the effectiveness of the machines, but also devising completely new mechanisms such as the planetary gearbox , which for the first time enabled a uniform rotation of machine parts from the linear movement of the piston. However, Murdoch's design did not yet contain the ring gear that is common today. In 1784 he developed a steam engine that lay on a floor plate and powered its own wheels: the first locomobile , an original model of the steam train and motor vehicles. While Murdoch was still working with a functioning model in 1784, by autumn 1795 he had developed a patent-ready version of a locomotive based on this steam car , which, however, at Boulton's instigation, he did not apply for a patent. In 1801 the first locomobile drove on Britain's roads that could transport passengers. It came from Murdoch's workshop.

Chemical and technical developments

Murdoch's marble bust by EG Papworth

During his work as an engineer, Murdoch inevitably came into contact with chemical reactions, for example when building foundations or working with coal for his steam engines. On these occasions, through careful observation, he could discover processes and find useful applications for them that had been overlooked by other engineers.

A classic example of this approach is his discovery of iron cement , of which eyewitness reports were first available in 1784. It is a mixture of ammonium chloride (NH 4 Cl) and iron filings that hardens particularly firmly. Murdoch allegedly discovered the mixture when these two components were accidentally mixed in a sack and hardened into a very solid block. This material was then successfully used by Murdoch to create firm and secure connections at critical points on his steam engines (pipe connections, valve attachments, etc.). The welding was not yet invented; besides, the materials of the time would not have allowed this anyway. As a result, joints in the pipe system often broke open before Murdoch's discovery.

On the other hand , he aimed at developing an alternative production method for Isinglass ( isinglass ), a collagenous substance that was obtained primarily from the swim bladder of sturgeon and used by brewers and winemakers to precipitate (“clarify”) proteins from the fermentation process. Since Isinglass had to be imported from distant Russia, it was very expensive. Murdoch's substitute was obtained from the much cheaper cod , which could also be caught in its own waters. The studies of well-known British authorities, above all the chemist Sir Humphry Davy , confirmed the successful synthesis. Murdoch was then paid £ 2,000 by the British Brewers' Guild in recognition of his development of the much cheaper British Isinglass .

Gas lighting

Modern gas lantern

The best known development by Murdoch is gas lighting . It was based on another observation he had made while working with steam engines: heated coal develops a flammable gas that can be fed through pipes and flared elsewhere. Around 1792 - here the eyewitness reports contradict each other, and Murdoch's own records are obviously unknown - Murdoch began to experiment with which materials were suitable for the production of combustible gas. Experiments with coal, wood and peat are documented; Murdoch also researched the amount of gas produced and the quality. There are many reports for 1794 that Murdoch heated coal in a small retort and conducted the resulting gas through an iron pipe about a meter long into an old gun barrel, where he torched it. In the same year, the first experiments were carried out with the replacement of candles for interior lighting in Murdoch's house in Redrouth, for which he set up a larger retort in the courtyard of his property and conducted the gases developed there through a small pipe into his dining room. The line had been led through a hole in the window frame and ended under the ceiling above the table. Murdoch even developed a gas-powered hand lamp during this time.

In 1798 Murdoch began experimental gas lighting for his Smethwick foundry ; These experiments lasted until 1802. At this point in time, however, the entire building was probably neither illuminated, nor was its gas lighting active all the time. This was not realized for the first time until 1805, when Murdoch equipped the cotton mill of entrepreneurs Phillips and Lee in Manchester with initially 50 and later with up to 904 gas lights. Murdoch was able to solve the resulting serious odor problem of the coal gas by heating limestone together with the coals. The optimal heat for developing the largest possible amount of gas from the coals was also experimentally clarified in this project.

Typical gasometer

The Royal Society awarded him the Rumford Medal in 1806 for the development of what later became known as town gas and the first commercial application of its discovery . In 1810 Murdoch became a partner in “his” company, Boulton & Watt.

From around 1809 Murdoch developed a practicable form of street and house lighting with the help of gas lanterns for his employer. However, the company gave up its initial chances as a monopoly, for some time also supported by the British Parliament, as it did not continue the development. In 1812 the backing of parliament fell and the company faced competition; In 1814 it stopped the production of gas lamps, gas pipes and production accessories. A mistake, as it turned out: just a few decades later, almost every city in England and many large cities in Europe were equipped with gas lights and their own public utilities.

Since Murdoch had not patented his developments on the advice of James Watt junior and his own negative experiences in another case, he could not earn any money with license fees. Since the Boulton & Watt company, for which he was still working, had quickly given up production, Murdoch's efforts were not rewarded.

Steamships

The Clermont of 1807

The steam engines from Boulton & Watt were not only used to operate coal mines, but soon also served as an experimental basis for the motorization of ships. In 1807, The Clermont , the first steamship on the Hudson River , was powered by a Watt engine. Murdoch was the company's engineer in charge of developing and overseeing the machine. At first this was just a side business.

From 1817, however, the company turned with great energy to the development of sea-going steamships. In that year James Watt Jr. constructed The Caledonia , a paddle steamer, which initially reached a cruising speed of 8 mph, after Murdoch's optimizations of 12 mph (corresponding to about 20 km / h). She won races and crossed the canal to go up the Rhine from Rotterdam. These successes made the British Navy aware of propulsion technology. It quickly became apparent that the Boulton & Watt machines - in other words: Murdoch's designs - were the most advanced. Between 1813 and 1825 the company produced steam boilers for the navy with a total of 3,000 horsepower, which corresponds to around 40–60 boilers.

Late work and old age

In addition to his work for Boulton & Watt, Murdoch came up with a few other constructs, some of which still exist today in a similar form. In 1815 he developed the first gravity heating for the Lemmington Spa bath house. When he moved into a new house in Handsworth, a suburb of Birmingham, in 1817, he had equipped it with a compressed air-operated doorbell and air conditioning, among other things. Of course it was lit by gas light.

In 1830, at the age of 76, Murdoch ended his partnership with Boulton & Watt. Although he was earning a very good salary of £ 1,000 a year at the time, his declining health and the bad business of the company forced him to do so.

Murdoch died on November 15, 1839 in his home in Handsworth and was buried shortly thereafter in the churchyard of St. Mary's Church in his home ward. He has been honored several times by statues and street names in England.

literature

See also

Web links

Commons : William Murdoch  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Article by John C. Griffiths, "Murdock, William (1754-1839)," [1] , accessed May 21, 2007
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on July 13, 2007 .